


Maybe They'll Leave You Alone, But Not Me

by laceaesthetic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Quadrant Vacillation, T is for swearing, and also for overwhelming emotions that are teen-like, background rosemary - Freeform, but its like a joke, kismesistude but not abusive, mentioned davekat - Freeform, mentioned vrisrezi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-23 01:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceaesthetic/pseuds/laceaesthetic
Summary: Adaptation to domesticity, after years of war and survival, can kill a soldier. To be thrust into the waters of Antartica after being boiled alive is agony. John Egbert tries his best to live apart from the game. He fails miserably for the most part, and Terezi has to step in and help him. But Terezi Pyrope is not perfect either. A lending hand can help anyone in need.A story about falling in love, slowly, with the one person who sees through your bullshit.





	Maybe They'll Leave You Alone, But Not Me

Three years. It took three years for Terezi to come back with Vriska in her arms. They're filled with wide smiles and tangled hands.

It takes a week for anyone to get over their shock. The hot button question is _how did she do it?_

The next week the question has morphed to _how is she_ _doing?_

As nervous eyes peer into red shades, everyone is unsettled by the unwavering smile.

 

_Are you forgiving Vriska?_

_Aren't things difficult now?_

_Are you okay?_

 

You know well enough about hiding to know that Terezi is hiding all the negative. You know well enough about hiding to know that she doesn't want anyone to find out. You let her keep her honeyed laughs and calloused fingers running through barely brushed hair. You don't ask her anything.

It takes five weeks for her to knock on your door. She is no longer soft hugs and jittery legs. She is sharp glares and trailing claws. She has reverted to the old form who has always pestered you. You realize it's a front, you say nothing. You realize she can taste the dust in the air, smell the stale chips you haven't touched for weeks in the pantry, she says nothing. It's an uneasy truce. You stand in the doorway, doing nothing but staring at each other with plastered grins on your face.

She's leaning against the door frame casually and with her enigmatic enthusiasm, she says, "Ehh, what's up, John," in the worst Bugs Bunny impression you have ever heard. It breaks all the tension in the room and you bark out laughter buried deep in your chest. Your day has begun.

"Who's giving you lessons in multiculturalism? You should demand a refund!"

Terezi shifts off of the door, "I'll tell Dave and Karkat you don't appreciate their teachings."

Your laughter dies down in a moment more and it's a truce once again. You shift on the balls of your feet before you ask, trying your best at nonchalant, "What did you want Terezi?"

She cracks her knuckles in a nervous habit before replying, "I just needed to hang out with someone. I thought you would be a good candidate."

There’s something in her voice that gives her away. She’s being genuine, she needs time apart. You can practically feel the anxious energy rolling off of Terezi in waves. Surprisingly, you understand what it's like to be engulfed by love to the point where you can no longer process it. If she needs a little freedom, who are you to deny her? You smile at her, just the slightest bit of platonic pity seeping through, "Yeah we can hang out. Anything you had in mind?"

"I wanted to visit the brooding caverns—feel like I'm still on Alternia, even if it's just for a moment."

"Taking an alien right to your young? I am fairly sure that can be considered treason, Counselor." You offer her your arm in order to teleport there. As she takes it, her nails brush your bare skin. None of them draw blood, but all of them leave a scratch.

She fakes a serious expression, "I have a pass." The statement is simple enough to bring you into a new fit of laughter as you teleport away.

 

The brooding caverns are dim, but still comforting in an odd way. It brings you feelings of adventure and excitement. It brings Terezi a sense of nostalgia, a longing for memories long burned away—the only evidence left of _her_ upbringing are her grub scars. You find Kanaya just a few feet away from you, smiling brightly like a mother seeing her child grow. You suppose in a way, all of trollkind is Kanaya’s child. You figure that must be a heavy burden to hold. You try not to berate yourself for being overwhelmed with your own, significantly lighter, workload. You fail.

Terezi takes you out of your daze. She pulls on your arm toward Kanaya and, after a second glance, Rose as well.

“Hey Kanaya, let us walk around and harass all these grubs roaming around,” she says, in that weird tone she puts on where you can’t exactly tell if she’s joking. Though, you’ve long since decided it’s easier to think she’s always joking.

“Do try not to step on the poor creatures, the cleaning bill would be just awful to pay for,” Rose interjects, barely looking away at gurgling yellow grub that has currently caught her attention.

“Though, I do particularly miss grubsauce every now and again. Hm, perhaps I will leave it up to you to decide if you will step on them or not,” Kanaya hums, letting a finger drift to her chin in faux thought. She lets a small smile overtake her features, “Of course you can look around. You helped create this after all.”

Terezi all but shouts her gratitude as she leads you deeper into the cavern.

You follow her quietly for a few moments as she takes in the sight of the grubs—some half-breed, some not. She’s in awe of all them, treating the trip like a museum.

“You don’t really see grubs at all. That is unless they’re part of some gadgetry or media. Karkat always talks about how traumatizing the experience was when he saw all of our grubs at the ectobiology lab. Though, honestly, that’s probably because he realized that he literally created himself,” Terezi absently rambled.

“Yeah that’s right, trolls are all weird about taking care of your own young. Of course, you wouldn’t see a lot of babies at any point in your life.”

“It’s called survival of the fittest genius, maybe if _your_ species participated in the concept, you wouldn’t be so soft!” She demonstrates her point by punching you on the shoulder. It’s not meant to hurt you, but she puts just enough force into it that you end up tripping and hovering above the ground in a panic.

You gather yourself and cross your arms before replying, “Say that all you want, but guess who’s god tier and who isn’t?” You lift yourself several feet off the ground to make your point clear and hover in a cross-legged pose above her head, Terezi’s head vacantly follows you. She sniffs at you to gather your position.

She doesn’t take the bait, her smile grows wider, “God tiering is so cheating, I was so awesome at the game that I didn’t _need it!”_

“Sure, maybe you are, but can you tell me how being so _tough,_ relates to being so _prude?_ I mean, your species thinks showing the slightest bit of empathy means you want to make out with that person! How does that work?”

Terezi shakes her head as if you were a child caught clawing at the cookie jar, “John, when everything on your planet wants to _kill you_ , the things that don’t are rare and deserve a special connection!”

You let the thought marinate in your brain, another comes to you in a flurry. “Okay, what about black romance? Don’t trolls in that kind of relationship want to kill each other? How do you distinguish between platonic hate and romantic hate?”

Terezi’s smile is wiped off of her face. She frowns at you for a moment before reaching up to pat your thigh, her face is staring up at you and though her glasses cover a large portion of it, you can still see the concern written in her expression. You realize she’s asking you to face her and nervously, you lower yourself down to eye-level and uncross your legs. Your feet still aren’t touching the ground—a nervous tic you picked up ever since you ascended. “Black romance is _not_ about wanting to kill each other. It’s about seeing the flaws in someone else and wanting to _change_ them.” Terezi’s voice is soft as she explains it, her serious frown still in place. “Did you think I’ve been wanting to _kill_ you this entire time I’ve been flirting?”

The sentence shocks you, a bright flush finds your cheeks and you hover a little higher with nervous energy. “I didn’t realize you were flirting.” A matching teal warmth covers Terezi’s cheeks at your response.

“Oh.”

You look at her and Terezi takes big breaths in your direction. You think about all the things she can’t notice about you. Your tiny glasses that have failed to grow with you, your obvious overbite that always spills out of your mouth and shows past your lips. Your grinded-down nails that never get the chance to grow because you bite at them, your hair that has grown a little longer than your liking and has begun to curl at the base of your neck. You stop thinking. You start to _really_ look at Terezi. Her jagged teeth that peek out of her lips whenever she smiles, the faintest of scars littered on her skin from when she’s scratched herself too hard. The darker of scars that litter her skin from battles long won, the dirt under her fingernails—on hands she now wrings obsessively in this silent moment. You notice that she is far from perfect. It gives you a sense of relief. You let yourself work up the courage to speak again. “You aren’t doing the one quadrant thing like Dave and Karkat? You’re still too much of a troll,” a smile creeps back onto your face at your ill-timed joke.

Terezi shakes her head, the smallest of smiles on her face, “No, I’m sticking with just being flushed for Vriska,” she takes a breath as she continues, “after everything we’ve been through—everything I’ve _done to her—_ I don’t think I’d ever be okay with going close to pitch with her again. I’m… I’m scared it will go off the deep end and I’ll lose her again.”

You don’t know what to say really, so you wrap your arm around her shoulders and start talking again, “Well, I’m all here for the hating now! Maybe we can even get Dave to be our auspit-thingy!”

The tension dissipates as Terezi starts to laugh from deep within her chest again. “I will _not_ explain quadrants to you anymore John, call up Karkat for that.”

“Okay so _I_ won’t be taught quadrants, are these little guys going to be taught them?” Your gaze shifts to the grubs you’ve all but ignored, still traversing the ground around you.

Terezi crouches and sniffs at a small olive grub before answering, “Yeah they are, but they’re also going to be taught about a human’s version of love and quadrant vacillation as being normal types of love. Vacillation wasn’t really accepted in Alternia.” The sentence hangs heavy in the air, you recognize the meaning and the unspoken in those words. Even a species where bisexual is the default has its own prejudices. You find the burden in such a short sentence nearly unbearable.

As she rises, you lean on her shoulder and babble again, “Isn’t it weird that we’re just expected to be monarchs of a bunch of kingdoms? I don’t even know a lot about the planet’s history. I just kinda… live in it.”

Terezi leans towards you, her fangs on full display, “You are, quite possibly, the worst god I’ve ever met.” Before you can defend yourself, she grabs your hand in a vice grip and pulls you deeper into the quiet caverns. Her shrill laughter echoes through the walls.

 

 

 

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling ectoBiologist [EB] at 18:32 --

GC: TH4NKS FOR L3TT1NG M3 G3T 4W4Y FROM 3V3RYTH1NG

GC: 1 4PPR3C134T3 1T

GC: >:]

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB] at 18:34 --

EB: we can totally do it again some time!

EB: if you want to of course.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] at 18:44 --

Though this new world may be filled with advanced technological wonders like Snapchat and Telegram, you all still find yourselves clinging to Pesterchum and Trollian’s old, laggy servers. Life is easier that way.

 

 

 

Another week passes you by. You sniff at plain potato chips and alchemize new bags filled with a variety of flavors, ignoring the fact that you may never eat them. You hold them in your hands, fascinated by the bright colors on the plastic packaging. The abrupt raps at your front door startle you out of your stupor.

Terezi practically knocks your door clean off of its hinges, her muscled arms wreaking havoc on the mahogany. When you open the door, she nearly stumbles face-first onto your marble floor. She collects herself briefly before picking up an item left on the doormat. The wicker basket gives no hints as to what could be hidden within it, even though you inquisitively lean towards it. Terezi innocently moves her arms to march forward and begins to laugh when the basket connects with your forehead.

At that moment, you look up at her and take in the sight. For whatever reason, she’s opted to not wear her glasses today, and you can see the light scars that overtake her eyelids. Her gaze is piercing, even with no malicious intent. They burn like scorching lava, hold your rapt attention like they’re hypnotizing you. It is in that hypnotic trance that you notice the large, almost labored breaths she take as she surveys the room. Terezi’s nose leads her around your living room while her feet merely follow. She says nothing, but you can only imagine the dirt, the stale air, and the pure _sadness_ , she picks up from your lonely halls. Nevertheless, she plops herself down on the couch and gives you a conspiratorial smile.

Slowly, with the grace of an expert handling an artifact, she opens the wicker basket and unveils her prize. The aroma hits you first, a rather fitting surprise. The garlic and the bacon mixing to create a potion that awakens your stomach as if it was a fretful princess. You are the damsel in distress. Terezi, a dragon in shiny black armor. The steam rises after, slowly and gently wafting through the air, telling you it was made fresh—made with love.

“Something called spaghetti carbonara,” Terezi says, as if it wasn’t obvious to every nerve in your body. “Dave said you’d like it, Jade got the ingredients together, and Rose cooked it,” she paused for dramatic effect, “without an alchemizer.” She pulls out another container, still aromatic from the ingredients and steaming the sides enough to obscure its contents. Despite the unclear visual, the smell of bread warmed from a toaster oven will never be unidentifiable to you. Terezi licks her lips as she announces what is already known to you. “Garlic bread!”

You hear your stomach growl in yearning, leading Terezi to shut the lid on the container and stifle her laughter. She sets down the basket once more on your couch, placed precariously on the armrest. You are almost desperate enough to cradle it in your arms like the world’s most delicate child. The mere thought of it falling over and leaving the carbonara to fend off floor germs by itself leaves you cold and clammy from fear.

“Do you need plates,” you ask as you tear your eyes away from your precious ward. You watch Terezi hesitantly walk in the general direction of your kitchen. She takes another step before shrugging her shoulders.

“It’s your house, you know where they are better than I do.” She walks back towards the couch as you rise and head towards your kitchen.

You haven’t entered it in a while, you haven’t entered it _alone_ even longer. A part of you wants to drag Terezi in here so you don’t have to face your memories by yourself. A part of you realizes Terezi _wants_ you to face these memories alone. You take a deep breath, taking in the pristine white walls and cabinets. It was once comforting, how clean and perfect the counters were. It was a sign that your dad was managing the house just fine, a sign that your dad will _always_ be able to manage the house, the bills, your lives. Now the marble counters seem to blind you, clean not from tedious scrubbing but from being unused for months. This room was your father’s room away from his room, every tile within its walls scream out a different day in your childhood, a different smile your father gave you, a different note. And here you stand, about to ravage the very memories that you have locked up for so long. About to desecrate every drop of love that your father put into the kitchen, into the organization of it, the cleanliness of it, just to eat some _fucking carbonara._

You nearly step right back out. You feel wrong, alien almost, in this kitchen. Old photos of simpler, happier seasons are still tacked onto the fridge.This is not your home. You did not buy it, you did not pay for the water and electricity to stay on, you did not shop for the groceries that once filled the room, you did not browse endless home decor stores to find the perfect painting for your clown-obsessed son, you did not hang up those same paintings and nearly squash your finger with a hammer. This is your father’s home. The same father you disrespected, year after year. The same father whose death you caused. You are an intruder, you spit on the very memory of his being, Wherever your father’s soul may be now, you can feel his disappointment. You find yourself floating again.

With shaking hands, you open a cabinet. You carefully take out two plates, trying to ignore the rush of blood in your ears, the overwhelming urge to _run away_. You close the cabinet. You realize you need to open the drawer to get cutlery. You nearly cry at this realization. In a flurry of motions fueled by adrenaline, you open the drawer and grab a random assortment of tools and close it shut. In your hand, you hold enough forks to serve a family, two knives, and an unnecessary spoon. You take the little victories. Holding your conquest in your arms, you float back out into the living room. Already you can feel your pulse start to slow.

Terezi’s head turns to you, the smallest frown on her face as she assesses your reaction. “Why do you have a spoon?” You feel the tension in your body disperse as you begin to laugh.

“Just in case,” you coyly reply.

She doesn’t press the topic as she gathers your spoils from the kitchen venture and lays them in the middle of the couch. She sits on the armrest, facing the middle of the couch. The basket is now placed neatly in her lap. She waits expectantly for you to do the same. In a skittish attempt at getting under her nerves, you merely begin to float again. She sniffs at you and gives you a fierce scowl. With exaggerated motions, she serves the both of you, making it a point to give your plate a noticeably smaller portion.

“There’s honestly way too much of this stuff. I might as well just throw the rest of this out,” she says as she begins to upturn the large tupperware of spaghetti, arms outstretched behind her head. In a panic you fling yourself towards the plastic container, grasping it with all the might you can muster. She laughs as take the container and the lid from her, serving yourself a bigger portion before closing the container back up again. “Alright, I can take the hint, Egbert. I’ll put any leftovers in the kitchen instead.” You note that she didn’t say that you had to go back into the kitchen.

In an effort to appease her, you take your plate and a fork and sit on the other armrest, letting the plate rest on your thighs. Terezi gives you a wide smile before raising her fork and digging in. The clashing of steel against fine china and Terezi’s loud slurping fill your living room for a while. You take a bite into a slice of garlic bread, letting the salty flavors overwhelm you.

“Something about eating cake every day for my entire life makes me love salt way more.”

Terezi smiles at you before responding, “I don’t know much about proper nutrition for a human, but I don’t think _any_ lusus should be giving their grub so much sugar. No wonder you turned out the way you did.”

The mention of your dad brings a pain in your side you try to ignore. So you smile at Terezi, noticing the light sauce around her mouth, contrasting sharply against her grey skin. The image makes you chuckle and puts you at ease enough to go back to your meal. Another few minutes of loud chewing and clinking passes before a thought pops into your head. It hangs around in your mind as you slurp up the last of your pasta and Terezi starts to pile the forks onto her plate.

As you swallow your last bite of pasta, you open your mouth once more to voice your thought. “You know, if you bring me a meal every time you come over, I don’t mind being your booty call.”

Terezi’s eyebrows knit together. “Booty call?” Her interest is piqued enough to make her put down her pile of forks. You start to freeze, you didn't expect that you would have to explain yourself.

Clearing your throat, you elaborate, “Have you never heard that term? The person you go to when you’re having troubles with your partner?” You pause, debating on adding the last part of the definition locked in your head. “...Usually to have an affair.”

Terezi’s inquisition turns into annoyance, “This isn’t an affair. We’re in different quadrants. And me and Vriska _aren’t_ having problems!” Her voice is aggravated and it is clear you’ve hit a nerve.

You try to backtrack, “I _know_ the second part doesn’t apply to us. I’m just still not used to the idea of multiple partners—I mean, I get that you’re with Vriska, but you’re my only partner right now, so it hasn’t fully settled in, like, my mind.” Her expression shifts slightly, still mad but just slightly less.

“It’d do you good to be more culturally sensitive, Egbert. It’s not my fault that your species just becomes _obsessed_ with a single person and call it a day. That’s too many emotions upon seeing just one person for me.” She gestures wildly as she talks, you recognize her rash movements and voice is an attempt to defend herself. When she finishes, she curls back in on herself, perhaps scorned by your words.

“Sorry, I’m not the most fluent in alien romance. The trolls I talked to the most were Vriska and Karkat, and Karkat has the same views as romance as humans do—even if he _did_ try to tell me about troll romance.” You feel a sense of nostalgia recounting the memories, but try not to sidetrack yourself too much. “And then Vriska, well she never cared much about romance until the end. And it felt a little forced? I liked her a lot, but now I know I really only like her as a friend, if that. Things are weird now, and I haven’t seen her in a long while. I always got the impression that she was just, trying to fill a checkmark on a box by even mentioning a date to me.”

Terezi scrunches her nose at your unflattering description of her girlfriend. “I get it, John. You suck and are, at the end of the day, just a stupid human boy.”

Your stupid human mouth with no filter blabs out the next part, “And sure I don’t know what you and Vriska’s issues are intimately, but the two times you’ve been here, you’ve seemed… _on edge._ ” Terezi says nothing, for a moment. You nearly hit yourself in embarrassment.

“I’m not going to talk feelings with you, John-”

“I know you won’t. I’m not asking you to,” you try to gather your bearings and articulate yourself. “But I think whatever _is_ going on with you two, you have to like, talk it out. Otherwise, things will just blow up again and you’ll hate her again. Or she’ll hate you, or.. _something_.”

She slides down onto your couch, seating herself like a psychiatric patient, the empty plate still firmly between her claws. She tilts her head up, then side to side, as if she’s scrambling her own thoughts. She stops the motion abruptly, facing the wall stubbornly. “For a human, you are surprisingly adept at black romance.” You make a puzzled expression on reflex, and though she can’t see it, she still explains herself, “You say things that have to be said, you confront me. You aren’t nice about things. You make me acknowledge my flaws. I’ve needed someone like you.”

You start to smile at her honesty, “I’m glad I can be the person you needed.”

She closes her eyes and smiles, “Now you’re bordering onto pale territory.”

“Well, that’s just confusing!”

She laughs heartily as she picks up your plates and utensils. With fluid motions, she stands up and marches to the kitchen, you follow along silently. You watch her as she dumps the plates unceremoniously into the sink. She turns back to you with a grin, “I’ll help you with the dishes, but I sure as hell won’t do it alone. So, stop staring and start scrubbing.” You eagerly pick up a sponge.

 

 

 

The next time you see Terezi, it’s unintentional. You’re sitting amongst the branches of a forest close to your house, feeling the rays of the sun beam between the leaves and shine on scattered parts of your skin. You hear the loud crunching of fallen sticks underneath your feet. As you peer down, there she is, in all of her glory. She is back to wearing her glasses, which she adjusts back onto her the bridge of her nose every so often. You lower yourself down, trying to be quiet, but still, she hears you.

“I promise I didn’t come out to see you.”

“Well, what did you come out for?”

She raises her head to the sky before answering, taking in one long breath. “There are so many _new places._ It can be overwhelming to just travel for more than five minutes. I’m getting disoriented easily. So, I started takings things one step at a time. Explore things slowly.”

You nod sagely, as if you understand her. “This place looks a lot like Earth-”

“Definitely doesn’t feel like Alternia,” she sniffs again, “Everything is too bright and the sun too cold.”

“This place looks a lot like Earth, but it isn’t really Earth—my Earth. There are a lot of little differences, like new roads and shops. New artifacts and monuments, too. It’s more than just being a god in this universe that freaks me out.” You lay your hand on a tree trunk, feeling the rough bark scratch your equally rough skin. They are calloused from battles, the muscles strengthened over the years after all of your blisters healed. “It’s that there is nothing I remember from Earth that applies here. Is there still a bunch of racism? How many wars have been fought in the time we skipped?” You laugh dryly, “I didn’t even have the slightest clue of what was being taught to kids until the brooding caverns.”

It’s her turn to nod sagely as if she understands. “Just pick up a book, dumbass,” she eloquently suggests. She walks towards you and roughly clasps her hand on your shoulder, “You want to learn so badly? Go back to school! Take a tutoring session! I don’t know, goregle it at this point! You have the opportunity to do! The only thing up for debate is, do you have the energy to?”

You stay silent for a moment before answering, “I never saw it that way.”

“Been too busy locked up in your house?” You sheepishly laugh at her. She shakes her head, leaning in towards you just enough for her horns to be dangerously close to your face. “I’m glad you’re out and about again John. If I’ve learned anything from searching for Vriska, it’s that isolation kills.”

You shuffle your feet, “If I’ve learned anything from staying in my house again, it’s that sometimes people can be smothering and exhausting, and it’s good to be alone.” Terezi mutters something unintelligible under her breath before dramatically sighing.

“I hate humans and their nonchalant views on quadrant vacillation,” she states. You make a faint hum of acknowledgment, but don’t try to fight her on a topic you know nothing about. She starts walking forward and says, “Tell me about human love, I’m curious.” You take it as a sign to follow her.

You think for a moment and you leisurely walk behind her. “That’s a complex question. I think there are two types of love. Platonic and romantic. But they all have subcategories-”

“So you _do_ have quadrants.”

You can tell by her tone that she’s clearly joking, but you explain anyways. “No, we don’t, because there’s really only one love that people focus on and want in order to fit into society. That’s the romantic love—and now that I think about it that one doesn’t have subcategories.”

She groans, “John you are the worst human romance teacher on the planet.” You couldn’t agree with her more.

You notice that she always takes three large steps and pauses to take a big breath towards the sky. Sometimes, she licks her lips. You surmise that she has the time to gruel through your verbal mistakes. You continue, “Whoever you choose as a partner, there’s a lot of expectations for them. They have to be there in your worst moments, and they have to comfort you. When you are in the wrong, they have to tell you to stop acting like a dipshit and help you be better. But their greatest responsibility is making you feel happy, taken care of, they have to make you feel like any struggles you had on the way were worth it in the end.”

Terezi stops after two steps, “That’s so much for just one person.”

You shrug on habit, “That’s why most people get a therapist.”

She rounds back to face you, and gives you a puzzled expression, “What the fuck is a therapist?”

“They’re people that help you solve your problems. I guess they’re like, that ashen romance, except they do damage control on all your life, no matter your problems. And it’s only for your benefit, not for anyone else’s benefit. Sometimes they’ll even tell you to break up with your partner because they can tell that they’re not good for you or that you’re good for them. I guess they have a lot of responsibilities, that’s probably why we pay them so much.”

“And you just trust them? With your entire life?”

“Well, they’re professionally trained, so their opinion has a lot of weight. And in the end, they can’t make you _do_ anything, but talking with them can help a lot. It makes things and decisions clearer. People always say it helps.”

Terezi stays silent, moving for five steps before stopping. “Do you think we need therapists?”

You laugh, “Rose always tells me that  _everyone_ needs a therapist. If you pick a good one that understands you, it can do nothing but help you live life.” She nods vacantly. You get the impression that the therapy speech was a bit too much. “Can I change the topic? I wanna ask about your glasses, are they meant to block out the light? How do they work?”

She breaks out of her stupor before shrugging, “I just wear them because they look cool honestly.” She hesitantly props them up on her head, “I don’t even think the sun here can hurt me anymore.”

You look at her short eyelashes, ragged and uneven. You try to not think that it’s because they were _singed_ but it feels like a real possibility. You look at her red eyes, pupil-less abysses, leaving her face to look just slightly more cold, critical, and calculating of all she looks at. Again you take in the faded scars around her eyelids, small strokes and bumps that raze her eyebags. You find yourself enamored by her striking features. You find yourself awkwardly trying to think of anything else besides how pretty Terezi is. You take the glasses off of her head and gently place them in your hoodie pocket. “I think you look nice without them.”

Terezi gives you a wry smile, “I haven’t thought about how I look in a long time.” You glance at her unbrushed hair and laugh. She goes back to her routine of three steps and a pause. You walk in silence for a few moments.

“I like hanging out with you, maybe one day we should actually plan a day to meet up and spend time together. Instead of randomly showing up at my house or in my forest.”

She throws her head back in laughter before replying,” I think that’d be nice.”

She takes a step back to be next to you and offers you her arm. You take it, letting your short nails graze her skin, and you let Terezi lead you through the forest. For a moment, the weight of existence and godhood are off your shoulders. Perhaps, if all goes right, you can bring yourself to be that same tween you were before you ever knew about SBURB. For now, you are nothing more than Terezi’s balance. You are fine with being just that.

**Author's Note:**

> this was really fun to do! i finished it for the most part right before the epilogue dropped so when it did i was just like "rip"
> 
> the lovely art is from here: https://apollos-armpits.tumblr.com/post/185544780477/my-piece-for-the-homestuck-big-bang   
> go support my artist!


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